1. Field of the Description
The present description relates, in general, to amusement park rides and other entertainment rides such as swing rides, and, more particularly, to swing-type round rides in which a rider or passenger of a vehicle (e.g., a simple chair to a passenger compartment adapted for receiving one, two, or more riders) is able to interactively control the ride experience including a lateral position of their vehicle relative to a hub and tangential velocity of the vehicle during rotation of the hub.
2. Relevant Background
Swing rides are types of amusement park rides in which a number of chairs (or “passenger compartment” or “vehicle”) are attached to a central hub or structure. The chairs are each suspended by a fixed length of metal chains. During operation, the central hub is rotated or spun about its center axis. As the rotation rate of the hub increases, the Chairs are thrown outwards by centrifugal force. The rotation rate may be varied or altered during the ride to vary the radial position of the chairs and to vary the tangential velocity of the chairs. Also, in some cases, the hub may be tilted during the ride to provide additional variations in the motion of the chairs.
Amusement and theme parks are popular worldwide with hundreds of millions of people visiting the parks each year. Park operators continuously seek new designs for rides that attract and continue to entertain park visitors. While swing rides are popular for many park visitors, the lack of variety of the rides, including the fixed length of the support chain, causes each of these rides to provide essentially the same ride experience and limits repeat rides and certainly eliminates conventional swing rides as a ride that will attract more people to an amusement park. Furthermore, swing rides lack any form of interactive control over the ride experience with passengers literally simply being passively along for the predictably rotating ride.
There remains a need for new round rides including new swing rides that improve the ride experience. Such improved swing rides may be adapted to provide a larger range of ride dynamics, e.g., bigger range of vehicle speeds, centripetal acceleration, and lateral sliding/movement of the passenger, and the like, while retaining the benefits of a rotating structure or round ride including a small footprint, simple control systems, and relatively low construction and maintenance costs. Further, in some cases, these ride dynamics may be chosen or controlled by the swing ride passenger or rider rather than forcing them to accept a predefined motion of their chair or passenger vehicle/compartment.